Biomimetic soft lithography on curved nanostructured surfaces

In this paper a nano-molding process using a nature-created master is demonstrated. The eye of night moth Agotis exclamationis having 100 nm-scale structures on a curved surface is used as biomimetic master mold from which nanostructures are replicated onto a flat substrate. Suitable conditions of this simple and cost-efficient process allows for minimal texture damage. The fabrication consists of two steps: first, a negative PDMS mold of the curved eye surface is made, and second, the flexible mold is replicated into a hybrid UV sensitive polymer, on a flat substrate. An accurate copy of the master surface with dense arrays of 200 nm high and 100–120 nm wide posts are generated, thus preserving the integrity of the nanostructures. The known anti-reflecting optical properties of the moth eye were reproduced with a reflectivity reduced by a factor of 2.